Watch a video on Demonstrating Impacts

The true test of a standard is whether it actually improves sustainability. This video explains the importance of evaluating impacts to to make a standard more effective. More on our multimedia page...

Learn more about improving impacts

ISEAL leads a vibrant community of organisations dedicated to shared learning about how sustainability standards can improve their impacts.

If you are an ISEAL member or subscriber, click here to access impacts resources and analysis and to engage with your peers.

The ISEAL Code of Good Practice for Assessing the Impacts of Social and Environmental Standards (Impacts Code) helps standards systems to better understand the sustainability results of their work, as well as the effectiveness of their programs.

The Impacts Code offers a framework for building a monitoring and evaluation system capable of examining both short-term and long-term outcomes and requires standards systems to publicly report on the results of their evaluations. All standard-setting organisations that are members of the ISEAL Alliance commit to implementing the Impacts Code.

The Impacts Code requires standards systems to develop and implement a monitoring and evaluation plan that includes all the steps required to assess their contributions to social and environmental impact. These steps include identifying the impact they are seeking to achieve, defining strategies, choosing indicators and collecting data, conducting regular analysis and reporting of data as well as additional impact evaluations, and setting up feedback loops to improve their standard’s content and systems over time.

In this project and other efforts to implement the Impacts Code, ISEAL and its members seek to build on expertise, knowledge, and systems already developed by other organisations with experience in monitoring and evaluation of sustainability standards. This includes organisations such as the Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) and research organisations like CATIE.

For more information about the Impacts Code or projects related to its implementation, please contact our Senior Monitoring & Evaluation Manager, Kristin Komives at kristin@isealalliance.org

On this page you can download the latest version (version 2, approved in December 2014) of the Code of Good Practice for Assessing the Impacts of Social and Environmental Standards Systems (ISEAL Impacts Code).

WWF is looking to sustainability standards to transform the production of the world's key commodities. Jason LaChappelle looks at WWF's Market Transformation Initiative and the shared goal with ISEAL to demonstrate certification impacts.

ISEAL has published its first ever annual report. Released on 22 September 2011, ISEAL’s 2010 Annual Report highlights work on the groundbreaking Impacts Code and the growth in the ISEAL learning community.

In a thought-provoking session at the ISEAL Public Day Conference Dr. Kristin Komives, Monitoring and Evaluation Manager at the ISEAL Alliance, and Dr. Elizabeth Kennedy, Director of Evaluation & Research at the Rainforest Alliance, took a closer look at how to assess the impacts of certification.

Brazil is a country already strongly engaged in moving to more socially and environmentally responsible practices. It has some of the strongest environmental laws in the world, an effective NGO movement and a supportive financial sector.